Crustaceans

by Meikle, William

  She smiled back, but it felt slightly forced as she remembered.

  “We need to get under the pier,” she said. “They went that way.”

  To his credit he knew immediately what she was talking about.

  “How many of them?”

  She was almost afraid to say.

  Stark and Wilkes went quiet and still as she told them what she’d seen.

  “What’s under the pier?” she asked.

  “Sewers, storage units, disused cargo trains… a couple of hundred years of messed up shit,” Wilkes said.

  “And we get to go play in it,” Stark said wearily. “Get a team together, John. Gear up for close work in the tunnels. And make sure we’ve got plenty M-14s. You saw how much heat those suckers could take.”

  Wilkes nodded and left at a run.

  “I’m coming with you on this one,” Shona said.

  Stark started to shake his head but she wasn’t to be stopped.

  “You need me. And you know it. You brought me in as the expert. Let me do my job.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Stark said.

  “For a woman?” she finished. “Don’t you dare fucking patronise me.”

  Stark laughed.

  “I was going to say… for a civilian. But you’re right. We will need you in there. You’ll find some gear in the chopper. Get suited up. I need to find a map of what we’re headed into.”

  He was right about there being gear in the chopper. There was a whole wall of it. She was standing there looking bewildered when Wilkes came back. He laughed at the look on her face.

  “Don’t worry. You won’t need all the combat kit. A pair of boots, a kevlar vest and you’re sorted.”

  “I’ll need a weapon,” she said.

  “No, you won’t,” Wilkes replied.

  She smiled sweetly.

  “Yes. I will. Don’t worry, I won’t shoot anyone. I’ve been around guns my whole life. Twelve bore shotguns mainly.”

  Wilkes laughed.

  “We don’t have a cannon for you. But can you handle a handgun?”

  He handed her a pistol, a small Colt.

  “It doesn’t have much stopping power,” she said. “Not against what we’re after.”

  Again he laughed.

  “If you think you’re getting an assault rifle, you’ll have a long wait. Without the training you’d be dangerous to everyone.”

  She reluctantly agreed with him, but the feel of the weight of the pistol as she holstered it felt somehow comforting. It was while putting the gun away that she remembered why they’d left the field station in the first place.

  “The Park,” she said. “We forgot about the crab sighting in the Park.”

  Wilkes stopped smiling.

  “Sergeant Brookes and his team are on there way now. Let’s hope they get there on time.”

  Stark returned as they were getting out of the chopper.

  “Is the team ready?” he said.

  Wilkes nodded.

  “We’ve got eight men ready to roll on your order. Are we going in?”

  Stark looked grim.

  “I hope so. But it seems no one really knows what it’s like in there. There’s a man from the water utilities sending a map over but I don’t know if it’ll do us much good. We’ll be going in mostly blind.”

  Wilkes nodded.

  “Just like old times.”

  Stark managed a smile. He looked at Shona.

  “Are you sure you want in?”

  “No,” she said. “But it’s what you got me here for. When do we roll?”

  “Five minutes. We can’t afford to wait any longer.”

  Shona was very worried that they’d waited far too long already.

  That fear was magnified when Stark led the team down the ladder that led under the pier. She was placed in the middle of the group, feeling small and a little fragile among so much muscle and weaponry.

  “You know guys,” she said, as she was about to step onto the ladder. “We could always just take off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

  That got her a few laughs, and it started to settle the nerves that threatened to overwhelm her. But they came flooding back as she went down the ladder. Wilkes helped her off at the bottom and led her to the dark mouth of what looked like an old warehouse. He handed her a headband with a light and an ear-piece on it.

  “We’ll need these.”

  Stark was already leading the first of the men into the opening as she switched on the light. He put up a hand and clenched his fist. The men stopped.

  There was a noise in the darkness beyond, a high squealing.

  No crab ever made that sound.

  Another noise joined the squealing; scurrying, like a thousand tiny feet on concrete. The men tensed, raising their weapons.

  They rolled out of the dark.

  Rats.

  Thousands of rodents were tightly packed into a single squirming mass. The soldiers stepped back but the rats ignored them, tumbling en-masse into the water and swimming off strongly.

  Stark looked on, bemused.

  “Deserting a sinking ship?” he said.

  Shona nodded.

  “Something like that,” she replied. “Although more likely they are fleeing a predator bigger and more vicious than they are.”

  One of the soldiers laughed nervously.

  “More vicious that a New York sewer rat? I really don’t want to meet that beast.”

  No, you don’t. But that’s where we’re headed.

  Shona followed as Stark led the way into the dark warehouse.

  22

  Porter and Garston smoked another of the younger man’s cigarettes. Garston never took his eyes from the darkness beyond the smashed tank.

  “What do we do if it comes back?”

  Porter laughed.

  “We catch it in this here cage and sell it to Newman. There’s a hundred bucks in it for you if you help me.”

  Garston giggled. It sounded like the terrified laugh of a child.

  Porter was just about to remark on it when he heard noises from deep in the bowels behind the tank.

  Click, click.

  The noise of the pincers was accompanied by high squeals. Porter knew that noise equally as well. He often had rats out at the cabin. A couple of years back he’d kept an old cat that was the most bad-tempered sonofabitch he’d ever seen. It used to catch the rats by the scruff of the neck and play with them until they squealed.

  Down in the darkness the noise came again.

  Just like that.

  The chain jerked along its length.

  “Get ready,” Porter whispered. “Something’s coming.”

  Something came… but it wasn’t the crab. A furry brown carpet scurried up from below and spilled out from the octopus tank -- hundreds of them, squealing and jostling as they ran.

  Something’s got them spooked.

  And it wasn’t just the rats that were nervous. Garston picked up the shotgun and fired. Pieces of rat flew in a pink haze. They didn’t slow as they ran over the men’s feet.

  Garston screamed and started to stamp his feet. His cigarette dropped from his mouth and hit a rat on the back. Fur sizzled and the rat squealed. Garston raised the shotgun again.

  Porter put his hand on the barrel.

  “Steady lad,” he said. “They’re just trying to escape. It’ll be over in a second.”

  The rats kept coming, but soon started to thin in numbers. Far along the corridor a woman’s voice rose in a high shriek as the carpet moved off en-masse. Porter and Garston were left alone once more.

  The younger man shook violently. Porter carefully took the gun from him.

  “Best I look after this for a while lad,” he said.

  Garston didn’t complain. He lit up another cigarette and sucked at it greedily while Porter walked over towards the broken tank.

  This isn’t working. Fucker is too smart to fall for it.

  He turned back
to the youth.

  “We’re going to have to go in after it.”

  Garston laughed shakily.

  “What’s this we shit? This is your job.”

  Porter looked at the cage, then over into the darkness beyond the tank.

  I can’t carry it down there myself.

  “I’ll double my offer,” he said. “Two hundred bucks if you give me a hand.”

  The youth’s laugh got louder.

  “Mister, I’ll pay you two hundred bucks if you just let me get out of here.”

  Porter looked at the shotgun and considered making the kid an offer he couldn’t refuse. But the kid looked so near to tears of fear, and so young, that he didn’t have the heart for it.

  “Look kid,” Porter said softly. “I need to get that cage down to the lower levels. And I can’t do it myself. How much will it take to get you to give me a hand?”

  “How about half of what you’re getting?”

  It was Porter’s turn to laugh.

  “How about I attach you to the end of the chain and use you as bait?”

  The youth looked into the darkness. He chewed on the cigarette a while before replying.

  “Make it a thou’ and I’ll help you lug the cage down to the basement,” he said. But I ain’t going to be hanging around down there.”

  “In that case, I’ll make it five hundred,” Porter replied. He leaned over and began to drag the cage across the floor. “Grab the winch. We’re going to need it.”

  Garston looked to the far side of the room, then down into the blackness past the tank.

  “Five hundred?” he said.

  Porter nodded.

  “Cash in hand, soon as I get paid.”

  Garston picked up the winch and helped Porter manhandle the cage across the wet floor of the octopus tank. He stopped as they approached the dark maw that led down to the bowels.

  “Five hundred,” Porter said softly. “Just keep telling yourself that.”

  They got the cage through to the far side. Porter waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom and looked around. They stood in a cramped area, no more than eight feet wide, running along the back of all the aquarium tanks. The far wall from them opened out into another chamber beyond, one that echoed the noise of the dragging chain back at them.

  “Where does that go?” Porter asked.

  Garston had gone pale again.

  “To the basement,” the lad said. “But there are tunnels down there that go way down deep, to the subway and beyond.”

  Porter started to drag the cage in that direction.

  “Come on then lad. The deal was that we got this here cage to the basement.”

  “There’s rats down there,” Garston said.

  Porter laughed, the noise echoing around them, making him sound like a cheap horror movie villain.

  “Not any more there ain’t son. Now come on. The sooner it’s done the sooner you can get out of here.”

  Porter passed the shotgun back to the youth. He placed it in a long holster under his left arm.

  The youth took a look back to the lit aquarium hall, then bent to help Porter drag the cage. Together they went through into the chamber beyond, which was little more than a deep stairwell. Porter stood at the top and listened. There was no sound but their breathing.

  They headed down.

  23

  It felt dank in the dark shadows under the pier, but it got colder still as Shona and the team entered the warehouse proper. It ran most of the length of the pier above them, but where the pier was a hive of activity, down here all was silent and still. The place was derelict, and by the looks of it had been so for a good number of years. Rotting crates lay piled against the wall, sunken and slumped like half-asleep drunks. The floor was damp, their lights reflecting shimmering patterns of colour where oil had been spilled. Their footsteps echoed. Dark shadows crept around them as their headlights probed along the walls and into corners.

  They found nothing but more rotting crates. One of the soldiers poked at the side of one with the barrel of his gun. It fell in with an obscene moist sucking sound. A pile of mouldy something that might once have been curtains slithered out and fell at his feet. The remains of the crate collapsed in on itself with a clatter and the warehouse rang with the sound of cracking wood.

  The soldier stood back, shame-faced.

  The rest of them stood still, listening, waiting for any response to the sound. Shona was almost afraid to move. The men around her seemed tense.

  They have good reason to be.

  Nothing moved. The team relaxed, if only slightly, and moved forward once more.

  Stark stopped when they reached the end of the warehouse space. Light still seeped in here from the pilings of the pier, but ahead of them, where the pier ended and the edge of the city proper began, it was almost full blackness.

  Stark held up three fingers and motioned forward. Wilkes took two men with him and headed ahead, their lights soon lost in the deeper gloom. Stark led the rest of them on. Shona heard Wilkes in her ear-piece.

  “Nothing here but more junk sir. All clear.”

  They walked through a large doorway. Any doors that had once stood there had long since gone. The opening led into another large space, but one that had a lower ceiling. The walls here weren’t concrete, they were red brick, and arched ten feet overhead in a cathedral-like vault. Archways led off on either side at regular intervals. A rusting steam locomotive sat at the far end of the vault, somewhat lopsided where it had partially been de-railed.

  Wilkes and his two companions stood next to the derelict train, looking down at something on the ground.

  “You’d better come on over,” Wilkes said in her ear. “You’ll need to see this.”

  I really don’t.

  She walked forward slowly, flanked by Stark and the rest of the men. As she reached Wilkes she looked down. The beam from her headlight alighted on a scene from a nightmare.

  Two bodies lay next to one of the locomotive’s wheels. Or rather, bits of two bodies lay there. The white bone of a rib-cage showed through the remains of a coat; the nub of a thighbone showed where a leg had been taken off… a leg of which there was no sign. Two fingers lay side by side, dried and shrivelled like old sausages. The more she looked, the more she saw. Body parts were strewn over a wide area, the pieces showing signs of having been snipped apart, almost clinically. Dried blood had soaked into the packed earth on the ground.

  Wait a minute. That’s not right.

  She bent and touched her fingers to the ground.

  Dry.

  Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach.

  “Street people do you think?” Stark asked. “Caught here when the crabs came in?”

  Shona took her time before replying.

  “Caught here, certainly,” she said. “But not today.”

  Stark bent closer to look at the bodies. When he stood his face looked grim. And worried.

  “I see what you mean. How long ago do you think? Two months?”

  Shona nodded.

  “About that. The crabs have been here longer than we expected.”

  “That’s not possible,” Stark said, but he had gone visibly paler.

  “With these beasts, nothing is impossible,” she replied.

  Stark stood away from the bodies.

  “Okay,” he said to Shona. “You’re the expert. If these things have been under Manhattan for months, where will they be?”

  She didn’t have to take too long to think on her answer.

  “They’ll be deep, where it’s dark and damp. They’re natural burrowers and tunnellers.”

  “Then they could be anywhere down here,” Stark whispered.

  That’s what I’m afraid of. And we’ve no idea how many of them there might be.

  The side passages looked darker and deeper than before as the team moved out. Shona lagged slightly behind, looking back at the bodies.

  Two months.

  Maybe more.


  And in the height of the breeding season.

  I think we’re in trouble.

  24

  Porter and Garston lugged the cage and the winch down four flights, down a stairwell that got steadily dimmer.

  “Is there any lighting at all down here?” Porter asked.

  Garston had started to look worried; getting more agitated with each new flight of stairs.

  “There are only emergency lights in the basement itself,” he said. “Hardly anyone ever goes down there. Below that? Who knows? There are passages that lead to the sewers then the subway and all kinds of mixed up shit down there.”

  Porter stopped for a rest on the next landing.

  “How much further to the basement?” he asked.

  Garston looked over the railing.

  “Three more flights. After that, I’m gone, and you owe me five hundred.”

  Porter smiled.